Because at least here is one place where I don’t need to hold back on bad news for fear of oversharing (like at work) or unduly burdening others.
Mom just called to ask my opinion of feeding tubes for Dad.
She and my brother and SIL seem him every day; I think it would be a bit obnoxious for me to do anything but defer to their decision, but at least I can help clarify their thoughts. As we were talking about it, I said, “I have to ask the hard question. You’re not going to like hearing this, but are they just trying to keep him comfortable at this point or are they still hoping he’ll get better?
She said, “I don’t know … oh, I need to write that down to ask at the meeting with the doctors. I hadn’t thought of that question.”
From which it may be seen just how stressed my mom is. At least I can be useful by providing an outside viewpoint.
Dad weighs 114 lbs now.
We’re planning to go to Seattle next weekend, for my birthday; hopefully if things come to a head and I need to fly back to Philly before then we’ll be able to cancel things. Well, hopefully things won’t come to a head and Dad’s doctors will make him all better. This is why we’re so in limbo because that could still realistically happen. (Another sign of Mom’s stress: When I told her we were going to Seattle, she said, “Oh, any special occasion?” Under the circumstances, I don’t hold it against her – she probably doesn’t even know today’s date at this point.)
On a more upbeat note, I plan to spend this weekend practicing for the podcoast I’ll be recording on Monday, and writing a guest blog entry – both in relation to my coming book. I’ll also be finishing one of my Follow Your Arrow shawls (maybe even tonight – two rows plus a bindoff left) and then I should probably do the second of a pair of slippers for Mom. Also, I did enjoy D.E. Stevenson’s Mrs. Tim of the Regiment, but possibly the main character should have been named Mary Sue rather than Hester. As I was finishing it (because Amazon is convinced, probably correctly, that any one who likes D.E. Stevenson will also like Dodie Smith): has anyone yet compared Walton’s Among Others to Smith’s I Capture the Castle? I’m remembering the latter with memory blurred by a few years, but somehow the tone of the two books feels very similar to me. That might be accentuated because I read Smith’s book decades later and in a different country than where she wrote it, so the world in it feels as different to me as Walton’s Wales – in fact, one difference between the two is that Walton knew she was worldbuilding whereas Smith thought she only had to explain the quirks of one family. But that family life is so encompassing that she really ended up doing a lot of worldbuilding anyhow.